George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house. With CCTV. Perhaps the Surveillance Camera Players could put on a performance there. It looks like Britain really is becoming a surveillance society. [Via Digg.]
posted by homunculus on Apr 2, 2007 - 44 comments

Studies in Scarlet: Marriage & Sexuality in the US & UK, 1815-1914 , courtesy of Harvard University, features digitized trial narratives for over 400 cases--some famous, most not. (Harvard also has a more general collection of trial narratives here.) There are earlier trial narratives at Rictor Norton's Homosexuality in Eighteenth Century England: A Sourcebook and Early Eighteenth-Century Newspaper Reports; see also CrimeCulture's Rogue's Gallery and a Victorian anthology, Curiosities of Street Literature (originally published in 1871). Albert Borowitz has a brief history of true crime narratives here. For more historical criminality from the investigator's point of view, check out the Forensic Medicine Archives Project at the University of Glasgow. (Main link via VICTORIA.)
posted by thomas j wise on Mar 15, 2007 - 13 comments

The History of the Metropolitan Police offers a useful overview of both policework and assorted Shocking Crimes in nineteenth-century London. But there are so many more Victorian detectives--not to mention Victorian murderers--lurking about on the net. Sneak a peek at Charles Booth's notebooks, which record his walks with various London police officers, or read Charles Dickens' famous account of a night out with Inspector Charles Field (who later inspired Bleak House's Inspector Bucket). Put John Mapp on trial. Read some broadsides. Try to avoid Dr. Cream and Mary Ann Cotton. Executions, anyone? The Victorian Dictionary reprints a number of Victorian newspaper articles about criminal activity (click on "crime" to see a detailed listing). Of course, you can't forget this fellow.
posted by thomas j wise on Mar 31, 2006 - 7 comments

Naughty Children to Be Registered as Potential Criminals in the UK UK police are to set up a secret database of children as young as three who they fear might grow up to become criminals. What next, DNA testing on embryos to find out if they have a genetic leaning towards criminal behaviour? Link courtesy of Backwash.
posted by Jubey on Nov 26, 2001 - 14 comments

Giving as good as they get? I don't condone this, but it's the first time in this country that I've heard whites complaining like this (and, symmetrically, the Asian community blaming a small minority).
posted by andrew cooke on Apr 19, 2001 - 9 comments

UK more crime-ridden than US? CBS News has come up with a report describing the UK as a "battleground" for crime, replete with pictures of downtown Friday night battles after the pubs close. You're more likely to be robbed, assaulted, or have your car stolen in Britain than the US, according to recent figures. Then again, according to the DOJ, you're less likely to be raped, murdered or shot. Comparing apples and oranges?
posted by holgate on Jun 28, 2000 - 29 comments